


Check-In

by took_skye



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Hotel, Criminal Minds
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Gore, Case Fic, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Ghost Sex, Ghosts, Horror, Multi, Murder, Psychic Abilities, Psychological Horror, Serial Killers, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 12:42:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5870023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/took_skye/pseuds/took_skye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit is called in on a case involving The Ten Commandments Killer they're in more danger than they ever imagined when they stay at the Hotel Cortez...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Check-In

**Author's Note:**

> First time back in the fanfiction ring for some years so bear with me...And keep in mind now that the rating will likely go up along with number of tags as the piece continues.

_“Welcome to the Hotel California, such a lovely place…” ~ Hotel California, Eagles_

***///*** 

Morgan found it odd Reid seemed so fascinated with the history of the hotel they’d be staying at, but downright amusing to find the man engrossed in a book about it as he entered the conference room. “Man, what can possibly be so interesting about this hotel?”

“Did you know the Hotel Cortez was built in the 1920s by alleged serial killer, James Patrick Marsh?”

“Alleged?”

“He killed himself before they could arrest and bring him to trial, but it’s believed he killed well over a hundred people, if not more.”

“You don’t say.”

“It’s rumored he committed many of his murders within the walls of the hotel, hiding the bodies within the walls and secret rooms not unlike Chicago killer H. H. Holmes.”

“Well that’s lovely,” JJ grimaced as she set up for the debrief. 

“Later, as police were closing in, he killed his maid and then himself in his room at the hotel rather than be taken in. People have been saying it’s haunted for years.”

“Can’t imagine why.” Emily snickered as she walked in. “Should we be staying at a place like this?”

Rossi followed close behind. “Budget cuts at it’s finest. These days I’m just happy they let us keep the plane.”

“The hotel will be fine, we only need to sleep there.” Hotch stepped into the room, briskly taking his seat before looking to JJ. “Give us the rundown.”

“Rachel Morris and Daniel Holt, 32 and 35, were found tortured in the room of an expensive hotel approximately a week ago. Mrs. Morris was impaled with a metal rod and her hands were nailed to the wall above Mr Holt’s head. She was dead when police arrived. Mr Holt had his eyes and tongue removed, but miraculously survived long enough to make it to the hospital. His eyes and tongue were initially found on the bedside table and put into evidence, but then went missing.”

“Missing?” Garcia cut in from her screen where she’d been patched in. “How do eyes and a tongue go missing? Wait, I don’t think I want to know.”

“In speaking with the department I’ve heard everything from misplaced to accidentally thrown out to just plain stolen.” JJ was still frustrated at the run around the lead detective was giving her on that detail. “Mr. Holt was also glued…inside Mrs Morris.”

A wave of unsettlement ran through the room, but only Morgan spoke. “I’m sorry, what? What does that mean, exactly?”

Garcia’s face blanched. “I know I don’t want to know this one.” Her finger hovered over her mute bottom.

JJ hesitated. “Exactly? …Exactly it means he was given a high dose of Viagra, had his penis covered in super glue, and made to enter an already deceased Mrs Morris.”

“Ew!” Garcia forgot to hit mute.

Morgan subconsciously squirmed and crossed his legs.

“That’ll teach you to ask,” Emily muttered.

“What do we know about the victims?” Hotch pressed on.

“Both were married, but not to each other, with children and had been carrying on an affair for at least a year. Their respective spouses were, by all appearances, unaware until after the crime occurred.”

“So not a revenge murder,” Rossi noted.

“Mrs Morris was a freelance web programmer while Mr Holt was an executive at a big conglomerate. They met when she did some work for his company, it’s presumed the affair came from that interaction. Mrs Morris is a mother of two, Mr Holt the same, but none of the children are old enough to be capable of a crime like this.”

“This is expert level murder. Whoever did this has likely done it before and they’ll definitely do it again.” Rossi was certain of it.

“Actually, they already have,” JJ switched pictures to two disemboweled young men. “The Rylance twins, Michael and Mark, were found in the now abandoned home of their deceased parents. Both were crucified, disemboweled, and had their hearts removed, likely pre-mortem, according to the M.E.”

“We sure it’s the same killer?” Emily questioned, even though her gut already had the answer.

“One of the main detectives has gotten at least two calls from someone claiming responsibility for both murders and there are similarities in certain details,” JJ replied.

“He got calls from the murderer?” Hotch’s brows rose in fraction.

“Allegedly.”

“Meaning?”

“So far no one’s found any records of these calls, but it’s believed the person used cloned phones and a voice manipulator to hide his identity. From what the detective’s said about the conversations it would appear that he is speaking to the killer…the man on the phone alluded to the Rylance murders before the police knew anything about it.”

“Garcia, I want you to look into these phone calls first and foremost.”

“I’ll be all over it, Boss Man. No one can hide from my code-cracking genius for long.”

Hotch gave a nod, turned back to JJ. “Does anyone know of any reason the killer might be fixated on this detective?”

“Nothing outside the fact he caught the Morris/Holt murders first, but I hope to have a better talk with him and others at the department when we get there.” Over the phone he was consistently evasive, frequently ignoring or dropping her calls.

“The torture, the taking of body parts, the over-the-top presentation all suggest the killer is the same.” Reid remarked before looking down at his copies of the crimes scenes. “They’re all tableaus. The crime scenes aren’t just to punish the victims, they’re to send a message.”

“Yeah, but what’s the message?” Emily asked. “The first suggests don’t have affairs, but the Rylance boys weren’t married, were they?”

“No,” JJ confirmed, “but they were under suspicion for murdering their parents. The only thing that kept them from a trial was lack of evidence.”

“That’s it!” Reid excitedly shifted and flipped through his book. “It’s the commandments!”

“The commandments?” Rossi asked what everyone else was thinking.

“The Ten Commandments.” Reid stopped at the page of black-and-white press photos of a crime scene. “See, here, these migrant workers were all killed in the fields they worked on a Sunday. Thou shall keep the Sabbath holy. It was believed that, aside from the hotel murders, March also killed these workers. And it’s said that around the same time a known thief was found murdered, his hands cut off. Thou shalt not steal!”

“So a ghost did it? Great, case solved.” Morgan shook his head with a smile.

Reid rolled his eyes. Why did no one ever follow him properly? “Obviously March didn’t do the recent murders, but maybe someone inspired by March did? Someone who read about him, heard the stories, the legends, and decided he had the right idea.”

Emily smiled. “Or just any religious nut, really. Killings based on the ten commandments would appeal to anyone with an extreme focus on Christianity, wouldn’t it?”

“We’ll look into it,” Hotch replied simply. “Before we make any decisions on motive we’ll confirm these two cases are connected, but first we’ll meet with the current lead detectives and see what they make of the crimes. Lowe and Hahn, correct?”

JJ gave a nod. “John Lowe and Andrew Hahn, yes. Lowe is the one who received the calls.”

“Good. We’ll speak with him first.” Hotch stood, which the others took as signal to follow. “Wheels up in twenty.”

“Hotch?”

“JJ?”

“My understanding is that the area around the hotel is difficult when it comes to cell and internet service.”

“Mm?”

“I booked a room for Garcia to join us.”

“Oh, hell no!” Garcia called from her screen. “No, no, no, I’m not flying across the country to shack up in a creepy killer hotel while you hunt a deranged Bible-thumper!”

Hotch and JJ both turned to see Garcia’s worried face; even in her bright colors she looked blanched at the moment. 

“I’m sorry, Garcia, but this is definitely a case we’ll need you now.”

“How can I be any help when there’s no service anyhow?” Shot in the dark.

JJ smiled faintly. “Maybe you can help us with the service? You’re a genius with technology, Garcia, I’m sure you can make something work, even there.”

“Damn you and your flattery,” Garcia smiled briefly, then grew serious. “I want it noted that I’m not at all pleased to be going and I can’t promise anything concerning service.”

“Duly noted, Garcia.” Hotch smiled. “Now go get ready.”

*** 

They had enough issues with the flight Rossi joked that someone “up there” didn’t want them to get to the hotel at all and no one laughed. After the landed the SUVs arrived late, they got gnarled in two hours of L.A. traffic, and by the time they arrived it was already dark. Garcia looked like she might throw up.

“Long plane and car rides are not my friend,” she muttered as Morgan helped her out of the SUV.

“I can see that, baby girl.”

“I don’t know how you do it all the time.”

“We’re used to it.”

“Also, anti-nausea meds,” Emily smiled as she jumped out after Garcia. 

“For all the good they did.”

“You haven’t thrown up yet, right?” It was meant as encouragement, Garcia’s face suggested it didn’t help.

Hotch looked over the Hotel Cortez sign as worn-out bulbs struggled to shine in the darkness. For all his disbelief in “vibes” and “auras”, something about the place made the hairs on the backs of his neck stand on end. It was like entering an UNSUB’s kill room, it made him want to pull his weapon in preparation. “Everyone check in, drop your bags, and we’ll head to the station. Garcia, you can come with us. They’ll have an internet connection and you can examine Detective Lowe’s phone there.”

“Better that then being stuck here,” she muttered out as she warily eyed the grande lobby. It was too big, like it might swallow you whole if you weren’t careful.

“When it was first built it was considered a very modern in design,” Reid commented as he did his best not to scurry off in interest. “The rumor is contractors initially refused to build the hotel believing it both impossible and dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” JJ indulged him.

“People kept disappearing or dying during construction.”

Garcia groaned down a surge of vomit.

JJ recognized him from her research, from the files they’d sent her upon asking for help with the case. Dark hair, dark suit, dark look over his face. “Detective Lowe?” The man turned just before the front desk.

He blinked. “Agent Jareau?” He did research too.

“JJ,” she rushed forward with a smile, offered her hand. “We were just checking in before heading to the station.”

“Oh.” His lips went up. “Well, I’ll be staying here with you from now on.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“No, I do.” He let go of her hand, his smile faded in a sigh. “Given the circumstances I told you about on the phone, with the calls…my family…I’ve decided it’s best I keep them safely away from me until this guy is caught.” 

“I understand.” She had a family, she’d had the impulse herself.

Hotch looked down in recognition. He knew what that decision was like, the pain it caused everyone, and he knew all too well how little it might help keep Lowe’s family safe. His resolve concerning the case grew, hardened, with his jaw. “Detective Lowe…” he took Lowe’s hand. “I’m SSA Aaron Hotchner, I’m the team lead.”

“Yes…Agent Jareau…JJ, sorry,” he glanced to her with a smile, then refocused. “She mentioned you and your team on the phone. Thank you so much for coming.” John never asked them to, that was his superiors and he was furious about it, but it was better to play nice than fight the inevitable. 

“If you’d like, after we check in, we can head to the station and begin tonight. I’d especially like our tech, Penelope Garcia,” he pointed to the still queasy woman, “to look at your phone and see if we can find a way to track the calls you may have been getting from the killer.”

John hesitated, something inside of him screamed _NO._ “…I’m off for the night. I was hoping to get a good night’s sleep and start fresh in the morning, if that was possible.”

“Of course, we’re here to help you and your department at your leisure,” Hotch stated. “This is the rest of my team…Agent David Rossi, Agent Derek Morgan, Agent Emily Prentiss, and Dr Spencer Reid.”

“Doctor? Wow,” John shook hands, only Reid stuck with a wave as an uncontrollable itch bloomed over his skin.

“PhD’s…three of them.”

“Impressive.”

“Thank you.” For all his initial interests, something about this place was making Reid’s skin crawl. That feeling of insects burrowing under the skin he’d last had during his Diluadid withdrawals. He scratched phantom track marks. In the background, behind a tinted glass door, something writhed. A male shape in a putrid color without distinguishing features. Reid’s nails dug into skin, he blinked, and saw nothing. Had he imagined it?

John Lowe turned to the door, saw nothing, and headed back towards the front desk. “Come on, I’ll check in with you.” He hit the small bell.

A stout older woman came out from the back and froze on the spot. She looked to Lowe, then the others, then back at Lowe. Then she looked at Hotch. “Christ, you two could be twins.”

“Excuse me?” Hotch’s eyes narrowed, confused.

“You and Officer, here. Dark all over like you are.”

Hotch had nothing, Lowe only had a correction. “It’s Detective Lowe.”

“Of course it is.” There was a sneer in her voice, but nothing on her face. “Can I help you?”

“It’s Iris, right?”

“Just like the last time, Detective.”

“I have reservations. So do they.” He pointed to the BAU.

“Ah.” Iris pulled out an ancient sign-in book, flipped through, and smiled. “Oh, yeah, here we are…” She turned, grabbed keys, and began to hand them out. “Detective Lowe, you have room 64. Hotchner, you’re room 63. Rossi, 76, Morgan’s 46, Reid 52, Prentiss is 67, Jareau, you’re in 57, and…Garcia…”

Garcia hesitated at taking her key.

“You’ve got lucky 21.”

The tech took the key like it might kill her. “We’re all over the hotel.” 

“The rooms are the rooms. We’re all booked up, no switching,” Iris declared unsympathetically. She didn’t have time for this bullshit; the same bullshit as always. Someone wants a better room, demands room service, is bitching about dried blood in the carpet. Like she gave a shit. Only Lowe was supposed to be here, only the one cop, no feds.

“Don’t worry, it’s only to sleep,” Morgan set a comforting hand on Garcia’s upper arm. “The rest of the time we’ll all be together or at the station.”

“There’s some bad juju here.”

JJ stepped forward with a sympathetic smile. “How about I stay the night with you, Garcia?” She handed her key back. “And now you’ll have a spare room to give out.”

“No refunds.” Iris insisted.

“That’s fine.”

“I’ll see you guys in the morning,” John broke in with a friendly smile. “8 A.M.?”

Hotch nodded. “We can go to the station together, catch up on the drive in.”

“Sure thing. See you in the lobby at eight.” With that he headed to room 64.

Rossi watched him carefully. “How do you suppose he knows where his room is?”

“He visited the room earlier on a case,” Iris offered as she went to pick up the phone. “Now let me just get my coworker and we’ll show you all to your respective rooms.” She hit buttons, waited, gave the team a too-late friendly smile, and then spoke. “Liz, can you come to the front desk? …Oh, a whole gaggle of them…Thanks.” She hung up. “She’ll be here shortly.”

*** 

Even with JJ sharing the room Garcia didn’t feel right. Something was wrong with this hotel and all the candles and bright accents in the world couldn’t change that. It was in the carpet and paint, it was in the brackets and load-bearing walls. It was in every creak, crevice, and phantom footstep. Penelope did not consider herself psychic, but she knew bad juju when she felt it.

The water ran a bloody red before clearing out and warming up; JJ decided it was best not to mention it. “Look, how about I go get us some ice and you can order a few drinks from room service?” JJ offered as she patted her face dry on rough towels.

“Drinks with liquor in them?”

JJ smiled as she grabbed the room key. “Fine by me if you don’t tell, Hotch.” Honestly she could use a nightcap herself, the hotel was pretty creepy. “You gonna be okay by yourself for a few minutes?”

“Just so long as nothing jumps out from under the bed and grabs me,” Garcia’s attempt at a joke faltered from a too-serious tone.

“You’ll be fine, don’t worry.” JJ encouraged before stepping out into the hall with the ice bucket. She didn’t want to admit, didn’t want to feed the worry, but she found the hotel pretty unnerving herself. There was a stillness in the air, even in hearing others in their room, even in passing others in the hall, the air stayed oppressively stale. The only other times she could remember air like that was when she had the misfortune of entering crime scenes.

She took a left, then a right, then another right…it was like being in a rat’s maze. She took her second left and finally found the ice machine. Not particularly fond of the idea of coming back later in the night JJ worked to fill the bucket to the brim before she turned to find her way back. It was on the first left back that she was stopped cold by a child in the middle of the hall. 

He was very small, very pale, and very blonde. His clothes reminded her of what Jack had worn at his mother’s funeral, only with even less color. He blinked at her, but said nothing.

“Can I help you?” She used her softest tone, the tone that says ‘it’s okay, I’m a mommy, you can trust me’, but he still just stared. “Are you lost?”

And with that the boy bolted.

A mother’s instinct told JJ to chase after, but an agent and profiler’s told her not to. She went with the latter, refusing to detour from her return to the room. When she arrived back Garcia was sitting at a small table with two glasses, a bottle of soda, and a bottle of cheap rum. One of the glasses was already full. “Couldn’t wait for the ice, I see,” she smiled softly.

“Not after the knock at the door.”

“Knock at the door?”

“There was a knock, but no one was there.” Garcia shuddered. “Bad juju.” She took a big sip of her rum and coke, made a disgusted face, and then looked at JJ. “Anything interesting happen to you out there?”

“Nope.”

***///***

_“Plenty of room at the Hotel California, any time of year…” ~ Hotel California, Eagles_  



	2. Be Our Guest

_“She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys she calls friends…” ~ Hotel California, Eagles_

***///*** 

The room made Reid itch. It wasn’t anything specific, there were no bedbugs or allergens, it was just an instinct. Something about the room, the hotel, made him scratch until he bled and, as he saw the thin red lines down his arm, he knew he had to step out. Whether it was just out in the hall, out to the lobby, or all the way outside he couldn’t possibly stay in his room a moment longer.

He stuffed his key in his pocket, locked the door, and tried to remember the way to the elevator. He noted various stains as he went. Black on the carpet, yellow on the walls. A light at the end of the corridor flickered a warning. He blinked furiously and carried on. 

“Hey!”

Reid turned.

She was thin and pale with frizzy bleached hair and choker. Her hip was cocked out, her bruised-red lips quirked between a cigarette. “Gotta light?”

“Uh…” He fumbled the closer she got. “Ye-Yeah…” He pulled out a matchbook he didn’t recall ever picking up.

She leaned in so that the cigarette flamed and sucked hard on her first real puff. Her breath put out the match and made Reid’s fingertips tingle. “Thanks.” She smiled, pulled the cig from her mouth. “I’m Sally.”

“Dr Spencer Reid.”

“Doctor, huh?” She gave a throaty chuckle. “Mm, I’m up for playing doctor.”

“…They’re PhDs.”

She laughed. “Well, I won’t tell if you don’t.” Winked.

He saw it. With a flash of the fleshy creature behind her and an inhuman screech in his mind he saw it. Pinpoint pupils, swaying stance, slurred speech. Addict. Still using, always using, the street version of his old drug. “No.” He backed up against the wall, hands almost rising in defense. “No, I uh…”

Sally’s smile left, her lips curled. “What?” Her high faded to hurt and anger.

“It’s just, I —“

“You fuck.” She approached until his back hit the wall. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

Reid could see a seething hate for him bubbling inside her. “How about we go outside?” 

“I don’t go outside, I party. Like you.”

“I don’t.”

“You do!”

“Not any more.” He’d been clean for one year, ten months, and twenty-three days now.

Sally sneered. “Once a junkie, always a junkie. At least I have the balls to admit it.” 

“How about we just—“

“Fuck you, man.” She pushed off the wall only to tumble into the opposite one with a chuckle. “Fuck all you uptight sons of bitches! Think you’re God’s gift just ‘cause you got clean!” She muttered her way down the hall, speaking more to herself, until she turned with a glare. “We’re not over yet, asshole.”

There was a flicker of the lights and she was gone.

Reid stood, scratching, before deciding to quickly head downstairs and outside. He definitely needed fresh air.

*** 

Rossi was not about to just sit up in a weird smelling room, trying to sleep and waiting for daybreak. No way in hell was that going to be his night. No. Instead he would sit at the bar and drink until exhaustion set in. At least he was in good company.

“Another,” he requested. “Please.”

“Have you ever considered pills?” Liz suggested before her eyes slid to the woman. “Either of you?”

Emily smiled. “The FBI tends to frown on their agents popping pills.”

“But getting wasted is fine?” 

Rossi chuckled. “Drugs stay in your system…liquor not so much.”

“What they don’t know, won’t hurt them.” Liz pointed a perfectly manicured nail at Rossi with a smirk, then tapped her nose. Their secret was safe with her. “So, what are you lot doing here anyway?”

“Working, what else?” Emily smirked out.

Liz paused, then gave a dramatic gasp. “You wouldn’t be working the same case as that yummy Detective Lowe, would you?”

“We can’t say,” Rossi smiled into his next sip. Liz was over-the-top, sure, but she was fun. Intentionally entertaining. Fabulous, as they say…whoever they were.

“You are, you sneak!” She declared with a playful slap of Rossi’s arm. “Oh, see, now this is getting interesting. So…what do you know so far?”

Emily leaned back just a touch. “What do you know, Liz?”

Liz’s lips puckered a moment, then she sighed with a flick of the wrist, waving off the question. “Me? Nothing the papers haven’t already said. Crazy killer fixated on the ten commandments. That’s what they’re calling him, you know…The Ten Commandments Killer.”

The other two arched brows.

“I know, it’s a terrible name, so blasé.” 

“Why do they say he’s fixated on the ten commandments?” Rossi questioned.

“Oh, I don’t know, they just do.”

Emily smirked. “You’re keeping something from us, Ms Taylor, I can tell.”

Liz was accustomed to the drunks and druggies and reckless dregs that came in and out of the hotel, but these people were different. They weren’t just smart, they didn’t just have a good read on people, they were skilled. They would not be nearly as easy to play as the rest. She sighed as she went for the Scotch bottle. “I don’t know anything about the case, if that’s what you’re getting at, Agent Emily Prentiss…” she hisses the end, both playing and warning.

“But I’m guessing you hear a lot, don’t you?” Rossi went with charm. It was easier, more likely to work, in their collective situation.

“Oh, I hear everything,” Liz teased out, before straightening up to set the bottle back. “But not about this. No, no, you two,” she pointed her nail between them, “have to figure out this little case on your own.”

Emily was about to press - drunk or sober she wasn’t going to let someone lie to her - when Reid came rushing over from the elevator. He was flushed, almost flapping his hands, in agitation. “Reid, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I don’t…” he looked around, at his colleagues, at Liz, then around again. “I don’t know, I just, uh…it was weird.”

“Define weird.” Rossi was curious, but a tad incredulous. There should be a pretty high threshold for weird in a place like this.

Reid told the whole story of his run in with Sally, spilled it out in barely two breaths, but something kept him from mentioning the creature. A worry about seeming crazier than he might already, a fear of hearing those terrifying words ‘it’s all in your head’, a concern of having his whole tale dismissed because of one exceptionally strange detail.

“Well, that is weird,” Emily conceded with a look to Rossi, who nodded his agreement, and then Liz.

“Can I give you a bit of advice, Honey?” Liz smiled faintly at the youngest. “Pay no mind to the other guests here.”

“But, I —“

“If you let them get to you, you’ll go mad.” Reid frowned with a plop next to Rossi. Liz’s smile grew a fraction. “How about you just have a drink here with your friends to settle your nerves and I can walk you back up to your room?”

“Walk me back?”

“For protection.”

Reid couldn’t tell if it was a tease, a flirt, or simply an offer, but he nodded. “I guess.” Still, it bothered him. “Do you, uh…do you know who that was though?”

“My guess?” Liz asked, then answered. “Sally. She’s a frequenter here. Addict. Lonely. It’s very sad. But she’s no harm to you.” Liz didn’t consider it a lie. Sally really wasn’t much of a threat to any of the agents provided they weren’t any sort of threat to Lowe…or decided to get exceptionally high so that that freaky little Addict Demon was summoned. “Now, what would you like to drink, agent…?”

“Doctor. Doctor Spencer Reid.”

“Right…Doctor Reid.”

“I, uh…I’ll just have a cola, please.” Best to err on the side of caution, stay completely sober, for now.

*** 

John Lowe tacked crime scene photos on the wall. Then pulled them off. Then put them back on. He rearranged them, pooled them together, then spread them apart. He took various colored string to make and maneuver connections. He was missing something. Something big. He didn’t know what it was, but he was damn sure he wanted to find it before the FBI outsiders did. His gut told him that he couldn’t let any of the profilers figure this out before he did.

“Those feds are gonna be a problem,” she declared from behind him. “A real big one if we’re not careful.”

“I know,” he grumbled, did a double take. “How did you get in here?”

“The same way I always do.” Sally pressed herself into his back, wrapped arms around his chest. “I’m worried, John. These aren’t some local bumpkins snooping, these are professionals.”

“I’m a professional.”

“I think I can get to the little one, he’s got the jones…” she bit his bare shoulder, let her tongue play in the area between teeth, “but I’m not sure about the others.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll handle it.”

“What if you can’t?” She whispered her challenge before licking her way up the cuff of his ear. “There’s just one of you and seven of them.”

Lowe finally turned to face her. “But I know everything they don’t…and more.”

Sally giggled before his mouth slammed hers.

*** 

Hotch looked up from his file when he heard something, someone, hit the wall. He heard faint laughter, then moans. These walls really were too thin. But what was truly interesting was who was on the other side of those walls. The detective, John Lowe. A man apparently too upset to start hunting for a killer fixated on him, but not so upset he couldn’t entertain in his room late at night. Hotch didn’t want to judge, but it was hard not to at the moment. Lowe seemed frazzled by the case, but unwilling to help. There was something wrong with Detective John Lowe, but the question was…what was it, exactly?

By midnight Hotch was asleep, by 2:25AM he was awake again. There was music coming from Lowe’s room; something reminiscent of the 1920s or ‘30s, but still vaguely familiar. A classic redone and remade throughout the years in its original form. It was nice, but it’d be appreciated far more if it weren’t the middle of the night.

Aaron rolled onto his stomach, grabbed a pillow, and set it over his head with a groan. He remembered the days when he could alternate between going a good twenty-four hours without sleep and sleeping through anything, but that was some time ago. It was during law school and the first few years in the FBI, before there were countless victims to regret not saving and UNSUBs that made him fear for his family’s safety. It was before George Foyet. 

Hotch found himself wired; unable to find the energy to get up and work, but unable to relax back to sleep. By 4:30 Hotch gave up. He went to prepare for the day with the determination that Detective Lowe would start answering his, his team’s, questions.

At seven he crashed out on the bed, fully dressed and ready to go, while looking over what they had so far.

***///***

_“Some dance to remember, some dance to forget…” ~ Hotel California, Eagles_  



	3. Cops & Killers

  
_“My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim…” ~ Hotel California, Eagles_

***///*** 

Morgan sat in the driver’s seat as Garcia and JJ drifted in and out of sleep in the back. In all his years he couldn’t remember ever being first up, let alone having to wake others on the team, not even when he briefly took over for Hotch. Yet he’d ended up waking both Garcia and JJ that morning and getting to the vehicles before anyone else.

“Come on, work,” he growled at his cell as he tried to call the others. That Iris wasn’t kidding when she said the place was a dead-zone. “Damnit, man, am I gonna hafta go back in there and get everyone?”

“Probably,” JJ yawned out. Between thoughts about that strange boy and sharing the bed with a restless Garcia she barely got two hours in. “If their nights were anything like ours…”

“Am I the only one that slept through the night?”

She yawned again, this time with a nod. “Probably.”

“Really? How…” Morgan twisted in his seat. “How is that even possible?”

“I don’t know, but we should get moving so maybe you should head back in.”

Morgan sighed as he settled back in his seat before shaking his head. “Alright, fine, I’ll go get ‘em, stay here.” He moved to get out and finally, blessedly, the hotel doors opened for the rest of the team to pour out. All of them with sunglasses and slouches…even Hotch.

Reid slipped in the front seat with barely a hello as Emily and Rossi headed to the other SUV. Hotch walked to the driver’s side and Morgan rolled down the window. He’d have smiled, but seeing his boss’s face he thought better of it.

“I want you to get a feel for Lowe from his peers.”

“Yeah, sure, no problem,” Morgan shrugged. “You looking for anything specific?”

“If anyone else was present during the calls from the killer…and anything about a woman.”

“A woman?” The smile came out without his consent.

“Yes. A woman.” Hotch didn’t return the smile or explain. “I’ll divvy up the assignments more when we arrive at the station.”

“Yeah, okay…” Morgan leaned out of the window a touch more. “Speaking of Lowe though…where is he? Wasn’t he going to come with us?”

“He was.” Hotch went to his SUV without another word.

Morgan rolled back into his seat. “Okay…” he elongated vowels. “Guess this case will be interesting all over.”

*** 

It was Detective Hahn that greeted and showed them to the conference room he’d set up for them. Unlike his partner he was pleasant, open, and clearly determined to work with the team in order to catch the killer. He’d already organized the case files for them chronologically, including what he could find of the ones from the 1920s.

“Lowe thinks they’re connected. I admit he might have a point, I mean anything’s possible, right? But obviously it’s not the same guy.”

Hotch concurred with a single nod. “We have a theory concerning the difference in time periods.” Hahn gave a curious look that he spread across the team. When none of them spoke Hotch looked over. “Reid?”

Spencer snapped out of his doze and to attention. “Yeah?”

“The possible links to the previous and current crimes?”

“Right…” he straightened and headed over to the boards Hahn took from Lowe’s office. “So it’s possible that whoever is committing these murders now has, in some way, been inspired by whoever committed the 1920s murders of the immigrants…and a thief.”

“Okay, but…” Hahn was following, but unsure. “How would he even know about the earlier murders?”

“Well, any number of ways, really. It even depends partly on why it is he choose to follow the, uh…the presumed religious themes of the original killings…assuming he views them as religious at all. He could’ve been searching for a, uh…an excuse to kill, something to justify his behavior to himself and others. He could also have always been something of an extreme moralist who started to loose his grip on reality and has since devolved into a killer. But, in truth, that there’s a link at all is still up for debate. Often times patterns that people see are made by the people themselves because our minds will often assign order to random events as an instinctual way of controlling, or at least attempting to control, chaos.”

Hahn’s mouth hung open a moment, then his shook his head. “Right…okay…”

“I don’t know about anyone else, but Reid lost me,” Rossi attempted to diffuse the confusion slightly. While the team was used to Reid’s rants, others weren’t and it could be overwhelming for them. Worse yet the person could refuse to acknowledge that they were overwhelmed, which led to poor communication and sour feelings between the team and local law enforcement.

“No, I…I think I follow,” Hahn smiled. “He’s basically saying that it’s still too early to tell…anything, exactly.”

There was a small, collective, chuckle from the room.

Reid gave an embarrassed smile. “Pretty much.” 

“What we do think is likely is that the current murders are being done by a vigilante,” Emily noted. “Someone who believes he’s doing some kind of good, performing some kind of justice, in killing those he deems morally unworthy.”

“And if you have any other unsolved cases that fit that mold, we’d like to view their files as well,” Hotch added.

“Also any in which the victims had pieces removed or were displayed in tableaus,” Reid chimed in as he touched the crime photos of the adulterous couple.

“Tableaus?” Hahn’s eyes narrowed. 

“A dramatic picture, in this case of the crime scene,” he clarified. “With both the murders of Mr Holt and Mrs Morris and the Rylance twins the victims were posed, the crime scenes and surrounding area arranged in an over-the-top, but very specific, way.”

“Right…so you want me to look for all those things together in one case or any of those things in any case? …Because, well, this is LA.”

Rossi chuckled. “Try sticking to all in one case for now, we’ll branch out if need be.”

“Yeah, alright, we can do that.”

“We can do what?” The voice was graveled with sleep, but unmistakably Lowe’s as he entered the room with a five o’clock shadow and an oversized cup of coffee. 

Hahn smiled at his partner. “Look for other crimes that fit the parameters of the affair couple and twins. Morally questionable victims missing parts and, uh, displayed in a…” he looked to Reid. “Tableau?” Reid nodded.

“There’s the Gamboa murder.”

“The Gamboa murder?” Hotch watched Lowe carefully as he looked over the crime scene photos and reports that were tacked on the boards. 

“Martin Gamboa, middle-aged man with his head caved in by an unknown object. His brain was removed. The object, presumably something gold or gilded, was also used to sexually assault him.”

“Sounds like our killer,” Rossi snarked. 

“What makes him morally questionable?” Emily asked.

“I don’t think it’d be much of a leap to presume, whatever it is, it’s related to the sexual assault on him,” Rossi countered.

“Let’s not jump to conclusions without first seeing the case file,” Hotch warned, then looked to Hahn. “If you’d like Morgan can go with you to collect the Gamboa file along with any others that might fit this killer’s victimology and signature.”

“Sure,” Hahn started to head out with Morgan close behind.

Panic flickered in Lowe’s gut. “Wait, I —“

“I’d like to have Garcia look at your phone now,” Hotch broke his protest. “Maybe we can find out who’s been contacting you. If it is the killer we could have this case solved before lunch.” He forced his most pleasant smile given his exhaustion, but could tell Lowe wasn’t about to relent.

“I was told that there was no way to tell between a cloned phone and the original?”

“Oh ye of little faith, there’s always a way to tell,” Garcia piped up, finally feeling more like her old self. It helped she was far from the hotel and happily behind her laptop with iPad and iPhone on either side and brightly colored pen in her hand.

“What am I going to do without my phone? I have to keep in touch with others. My work, my family.” He looked to Hotch. “My daughter’s only way of contacting me is via this phone.”

He knew it was a ploy, but they weren’t in a position to just take the detective’s phone. “You can stay with the phone, with Garcia, for the time being if you’d like.” It would allow someone to keep an eye on Lowe was well; two birds, one stone.

Lowe shifted tactics. “What about the rest of you? Don’t you need help? I know these cases better than anyone.”

“Your partner is helping Agent Morgan, Agents Prentiss and Rossi will take a fresh look at the latest crime scene, and Dr Reid and I are going to return to the hotel.”

“The hotel? Why?”

“It’s possible this killer was inspired by the original creator of the hotel, Mr James Patrick Marsh,” Reid jumped in excitedly. “It was said he himself was a serial killer who built the hotel as a way to both trap and dispose of victims.” Even after the bizarre run in with another guest, the urges he felt while there, Reid was fascinated with the place. “It’s also believed he was responsible for the murders of the immigrants in the field, which you, uh…you yourself say would correspond to the commandment, remember the Sabbath day.” If he didn’t know any better he’d say the hotel itself was some kind of entity, some kind of drug.

“And our research indicates that ownership of the hotel is changing and the interested party is going to arrive today for a tour. I’d like to meet with and interview them.” In case it was the new owner himself who was their UNSUB. “Along with employees and other guests, in case Reid’s theory proves accurate. The idea is to cover as many bases as quickly and thoroughly as possible to come up with a profile that you and your department can then use to catch this person. Preferably before he kills again.”

“Yeah, I know,” Lowe nodded. “I just…these are my cases, I don’t want to be left out of them.”

“We’re here to help you, Detective. You, your partner, and others at this department will all be working this case with us, helping us help you. Even if you’re not with us during certain tasks you’ll be kept informed of everything that’s happening and key calls will be yours. Ultimately, it’s your arrest to make.”

Lowe nodded, but said nothing. Not even when Garcia’s hand slipped by and pulled his phone to her makeshift tech area.

*** 

“So how long you and Lowe been partners?” Morgan asked.

Hahn grabbed the Gamboa file. “Long time, more than five years, and been friends with him longer than that.”

“You like workin’ with him?”

“Yeah.” The answer came with a shrug.

“You don’t sound convinced.”

The two headed out of Lowe’s office and into Hahn’s. The detective sat at his desk and began to search the online records for other possible crimes. “He’s a great detective, very dedicated, but lately I worry about him.”

“Why’s that? He becoming too dedicated? Overstressed and taking the work out of the office?”

Hahn only looked up, then returned to typing.

“Hey, look, I get, I really do. Before I worked in the BAU I was a Chicago police officer. You get close to those you work with, especially your partner. They’re family and you don’t talk shit about your family, especially to outsiders.” Hahn looked up again. “I also know that certain people, tough as they are, hit their mental and emotional limit and still refuse to stop.” Like him and Hotch, for one.

Hahn sighed. “Lowe is a great detective, he’s a great guy, but ever since he lost his son he’s been…more keyed up than in the past.”

“How’d he lose his son?”

“At a Santa Monica fairground. He put Holden on a carousel, went to answer a call for a second, and when he looked up the boy was gone.”

“When was this?”

“2010.”

“They have any leads?”

“No…not that I’m aware of anyway.”

“Any chance Holden going missing is connected to the murders?”

Hahn shook his head. “Not that I can imagine.”

“He’s staying at our hotel, says he’s worried about his family, he tell you anything about that?”

“His daughter, Scarlet, was with him when he went to the latest crime scene, the one with the twins. She’s the one who found them. I just…” he sighed. “I don’t think he wants to expose her or his wife to any more of…this.”

*** 

“Honest now, how’d you sleep?” Emily looked over as Rossi drove.

“Not good. Not the worst I’ve slept, but I did have about half a bottle of Scotch so I imagined that helped. You?”

“Same.” She smiled, then sighed. “I kept getting the sense someone was in my room. Kept sitting up expecting twin girls to ask me to come and play with them.”

Rossi chuckled. “You meet any of the cleaning staff?”

“No. I take it you did?”

“Oh yeah,” he stifled another laugh as he turned onto the street where the Rylance house sat. “Ms Hazel Evers. She was in my room when I arrived, asked if I was one of the federal agents.”

“To which you preened an affirmative.”

“Then she goes on to ask if I ever heard of her son’s case.”

Emily’s eyes narrow. “Her son’s case?”

“She tells me that around Halloween, 1926, her son was snatched off the streets while trick or treating in a small town outside LA. After someone’s arrested she’s taken to a chicken ranch to identify a piece of her son’s clothing that was found in one of the coops.”

“Wait…She told you her son was one of the Wineville Chicken Coop victims?”

“Basically.” 

Emily didn’t mean to, but she snorted in derision. “What’d you tell her?”

“I told her that case was before my time.”

“What’d she say?”

“Nothing. She disappeared.”

“Isn’t that what Reid said about the woman that approached him? That she just disappeared?”

Rossi started to feel silly, like perhaps he was exaggerating. “Well, I should say that I just didn’t see or hear her leave. I was tossing my jacket on a nearby chair and when I turned back to ask her some questions —“

“Like what year it was.”

“She was gone.” Rossi pulled up the long drive. 

“Too bad, maybe she knew something about James Patrick March or the murders.”

He gave a smirk as he parked. “Still…you can’t deny this hotel is off.”

“No, I can’t.” Emily confessed as she went to get out.

***///***

_“Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light…” ~ Hotel California, Eagles_  



	4. Cordially Invited

  
_“So I called up the Captain, ‘Please bring me my wine’…” ~ Hotel California, Eagles_

***///*** 

“Goddamnit, I don’t care about your love life, this is bigger than that!” March slammed his fist on the table so that Sally jumped. “If he is discovered, caught, before my work is done we’ll have to start all over again!”

“You can always find another killer, there’s only one John.”

March’s eyes bugged; if she wasn’t already dead, he’d kill her. He took a breath to calm himself. “I have every intention of continuing with John, I’ve poured far too much into him to simply throw it all away.”

“What about them?”

“The feds?” He guffawed. “What are they possibly going to do? Kill me?” His laugh grew as he imagined the feds shocked faces when he got up off the floor after they fired upon him. It really did get more amusing each time.

“What about them and John?” The tension in her voice strained as she got the feeling March was fucking with her.

“One must always keep oneself adaptable. Adaptation is what keeps the species going.”

“Adapt how?”

“By getting a backup.”

“A backup?”

“Certainly! I’ve seen more than one around here that’s ripe for the picking. It’s just a matter of selecting the one with the greatest potential.”

Sally smirked. “Like who? Iris?” 

“Like one of those feds, perhaps.” What a coup that would be!

*** 

Hotch pulled up behind an oversized SUV as Reid scratched his forearm. “Reid, are you having cravings?” He’d ignored the behavior for too long.

“No.”

“Do you have an allergy I’m unaware of?”

“No.”

“Then what is going on?”

“I…” Reid sighed as he got out. “I don’t know. Something about this hotel.”

“Something about the hotel…” Hotch wanted to remain supportive, not accusatory, but the vagueness of the answers weren’t helping. “What about the hotel?”

“I don’t know. It’s like it’s…teasing me with my addiction.”

“I don’t follow.”

Reid gave a scratch as Hotch came around to the sidewalk. “I don’t have the urge to use, but this hotel, somehow, reminds me of every time I did. I can…feel phantom needles and that nagging itch I had while getting clean. The mix of it is…” Maddening, but he wasn’t about to admit that aloud.

Hotch nodded as he looked Reid over. Outside the scratching there weren’t any other signs of usage yet. “Just let someone, anyone, know if you start feeling any real…craving or what have you.”

“I will…I do.” 

“Good.”

“Hi, hello there!” A middle-aged redhead called out with a wave as she ran over. “Hi, sorry, I’m Marcy, the realtor, are you part of the hotel staff?”

The agents’ eyes went to her curiously. “No,” Hotch replied, “we’re guests.” His eyes went to the man and youth behind her. “Are you the new owner of the hotel?”

“Will Drake,” the man stepped forward with a smile and hand. “It’s a pleasure. And you are?”

“I’m SSA Aaron Hotchner, this is Dr Spencer Reid.”

Drake’s smile grew as his eyes fell on Reid. “You look too young to be a doctor…too handsome too.”

“Um…” Reid’s usual spiel was supplanted by confusion. “Okay…”

“Mr Drake,” Hotch called his attention back.

“I’m sorry, what does S-S-A mean?”

“Supervisory Special Agent. Dr Reid and I work for the Behavioral Analysis Unit of FBI.”

“Behavioral Analysis Unit?”

“We aid in the apprehension of criminals based on their behavior.” He noted Marcy shift in nerves, but ignored it. It was more likely she had personal secrets she thought he could read than she was any sort of criminal.

“What is the FBI doing here? Or is this a personal visit to the hotel?”

Hotch could’ve sworn the smirking man winked. Normally Hotch would’ve gone to stone with annoyance, but something made his lips tick up. “We’re investigating a series of murders.” 

The reaction was just as hoped. Drake’s eyes widened, his face paled. “Here?” He pulled his son to him by the shoulder protectively and looked angrily at Marcy, who was even paler than him. “Murders? Here?”

“Well, I…” Marcy started without a finish.

“It’s believed there were a series of them back in the 1920s,” Reid cut in. “But, as far as I’m aware, the only confirmed one’s were of the original owner, which was a suicide, and his maid, which he did kill.”

Drake gave an unsure smile. “But that’s not why you’re here.”

“Oh, no, no we’re just, uh…we’re just staying here while investigating murders in the area.”

“Ah.” Drake looked to Marcy. “Anything else you forgot to tell me about this place?”

“I am just as shocked as you are,” she lied through her teeth. “I was never informed of any of this by the ownership board, if I had been I’d have told you immediately.”

“Aren’t you the same realtor who sold the infamous Montgomery Murder House to the Langdons…and Harmons?” Reid piped up.

Marcy’s plastered smile started to crack. “You’re a real shhh…ockingly informed person, aren’t you?”

“So, it was you?”

“Yes, I sold the home. I sold it a few times, in fact, and I always gave full disclosure about what happened to the previous tenants.”

“All of them?”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, um, according to records there were many deaths there over the years starting with the builders, the Montgomerys, in the 1920s.” Reid’s face brightened in a sudden connection. “Huh, that makes this hotel the second location in the LA area built in the 1920s whose owners died violent deaths only to have a series of violent deaths also occur over the years that you were the realtor for.”

Worried the woman might lunge at him Hotch cut his fellow agent off. “Reid, I believe we’ve gotten off track.”

“Oh…right…sorry.” Reid smiled at Marcy and the Drakes, but none of them truly smiled back.

“Right, so, can I get back to showing Mr Drake and his son around now?” Marcy needed to salvage this. “Please?” 

Hotch gave a polite smile. “Certainly. If you don’t mind, we’d like to join actually.” Her face indicated she minded. A lot. “Otherwise we may have to contact you and any owners, past or present, in a professional capacity.”

Her face melted back into its saccharine sweetness. “Of course, I don’t mind…but it’s really up to Mr Drake. This is, will be, his hotel after all.”

Drake gave his son’s shoulder a pat. “No, we don’t mind.” Then he smiled to Reid once again. “In fact I’d like to invite you to my show.”

“Show?”

“Fashion show. I’m planning on having it once the papers were signed as a sort of celebration of my latest acquisition…this hotel.”

“That sounds lovely, but I’m sure we’ll still be working,” Hotch stepped in.

“Nonsense, even federal agents need a break from work and it’ll be a perfect event to attend at the end of the day. Much better than anything you’ll catch on TV, I assure you.”

Hotch knew this man was unaccustomed to being turned down in all matters of his life. It made him want to refuse again, but he realized accepting the offer may be beneficial. Not just in getting to better understand Drake, but it was quite possible an event such as that at the hotel may be bait for the killer if he was, in fact, attempting to follow the 1920s March crimes.

“Well, what do you say? Come to my show?”

“The team consists of more than just the two of us, there’s seven.”

“The more the merrier!”

With that the tour began and remained uneventful until they hit the penthouse…

He stood stark naked, hungover, furious, and completely unembarrassed before them. Drake covered his son’s eyes, Marcy took him in greedily, Hotch’s eyes rolled up, and Reid just blinked. The man demanded to know why they were there and Marcy explained. It soured his mood even more as he stormed off. They followed.

Reid was drawn from the fourth set of introductions as he squinted against the neon of the words in attempts to read them - he could swear one asked “Why are we not having sex right now?”. It wasn’t until Lachlan was scolded by his father that Reid too snapped to attention. When he did he was struck by the blonde in the room and, apparently, she noticed.

“The Countess,” her smirk was slow as her approach. 

“I thought your name was Elizabeth Johnson?” He’d been listening, taking in new information, just not the needless pleasantries exchanged.

“Clever boy, it is…but most call me The Countess.”

“Why?”

“They just do.”

“Stage name?”

“Something like that.”

Reid nodded. She looked like a performer.

“So, you’re a doctor?”

“PhDs…Three of them.”

“Yes, I know, your fellow agent just said. It's very impressive.” She looked him over like dessert. “You have great cheekbones.”

“Ms Johnson?” Hotch was able to pull her eyes to him. “Are you also resident here?”

“Yes, Agent Hotchner, I am.”

“We reside together,” Donovan almost growled.

“How long have you lived here?”

Like Hotch, The Countess ignored her young beau. “Years.”

“How many?” 

“You know you’re much darker than your fellow agent, but no less handsome.”

Donovan groaned. “Really?”

“Look, if it’s quite alright, I’d like to finish giving Mr Drake his tour without further delay,” Marcy cut in. Really she just wanted to get the hell out of there. Away from the feds and freaks that were currently filling this wretched hotel.

Hotch looked at her, then to The Countess and Donovan. “I’d like to speak to you both more at another time, if possible.”

“We’re always around, Agent Hotchner.” The Countess gave a wicked smile.

He turned to Drake. “You as well.”

“Just allow me to settle my son and myself in and I’ll give a private audience where we can talk as much as you’d like.” His eyes went to Reid and his pleasant smile grew. “Both of you.”

*** 

It wasn’t until they were all gone that The Countess lounged on the settee with a sigh.

“You bored?” Donovan snarked.

“The last time that many lawmen came here I had to disappear to New York for decades.”

“It didn’t seem to bother you when they were here.”

Her lips curled. “This again?”

“Yes, this again,” he paced like an animal. 

“If you’re going to be jealous of every male I pay attention to you’re going to make things very unpleasant.”

“Like I give a shit!”

She stood, stopped him mid-turn with a biting kiss to his lips. “I will do whatever I have to in order to stay here, to keep us here, and if that includes hitting on some handsome federal agents and boy geniuses that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

Donovan looked away, she pulled his chin back with a steel-nail. “Is that understood?”

“Fine.” Her brows arched to triangles. “It’s understood.”

“Good.” She left him. “Now get your shit together and get with the program.”

*** 

The team met in Morgan’s room. He was the only one not to be disturbed the night before and it was relatively far from Lowe. Despite what Hotch had assured the detective, he had no intention of having a forthright overview in front of the man. Not in the least because of the latest news from Garcia.

“If he tossed his phone and changed his number, why didn’t he tell us to start?”

Garcia shrugged at Hotch. “He said he was embarrassed at having made a rookie move or something.” Even she found it suspiciously convenient, but there wasn’t much she could do until she heard back from the phone company — if someone else got Lowe’s old number already then they needed a whole new person to consent to their number being searched. Even then she could only hope that they kept the records of Lowe’s calls and messages after the transition.

“There’s something wrong with this guy,” Morgan commented.

“Is that what his partner said?” Hotch turned to him.

“Yes and no. Hahn knows his friend isn’t right, he admits to being worried, but he’s not ready to confess the details.”

“You think he has any?”

“I do, yeah.”

“You think he might be part of this?” Rossi questioned to which Morgan shook his head.

“Nah, I just think he knows of more troubling behavior or at least has strong suspicions about it that he’s not ready to share.” He sighed. “He seems close to Lowe’s wife —“

“Uh-oh,” Emily remarked. 

Morgan ignored her. “He said he’d try to schedule a time for me to speak with her, in private, tomorrow. She’s private pediatric physician so she’s on-call for a number of patients and usually cares for her daughter, Scarlet, on off times, but Hahn seems confident he can get her to make time.”

“And there’s thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.”

Hotch gave an approving nod - he’d take what he could get concerning Lowe - before turning to Prentiss. “What do you mean ‘and there’s thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife’?”

“I mean, whatever Hahn’s actual feelings are, if it appears he’s attracted to Mrs Lowe, he could be in trouble.”

“You’re working the presumption Lowe is the UNSUB?”

“No, I’m working on the assumption the UNSUB is connected to Lowe or feels he is.”

“Hahn’s connected to Lowe.”

“He’s not our UNSUB,” Emily dismissed confidently.

Rossi cleared his throat. “The crime scene didn’t have much for us. Most of it was cleaned out after Mr and Mrs Rylance were murdered so there’s not much to be gained in the way of forensics or how this family functioned prior to the parents’ deaths. The room the twins were found in what was once theirs, their wrists and ankles were tied to their respective bedposts. The bedding was white silk, their briefs black silk, which did a fair job of making the scene emblematic…just not sure what, if any, deeper message there is.”

“Unless he’s going for a ‘see how gutless they are’ thing or something,” Prentiss shrugged. She was grasping, she knew it, so moved on. “We are guessing that, like Morris and Holt, they were drugged beforehand though.”

“Are we thinking this killer is more interested in the presentation than the murder and torture of their victims?” Hotch proposed.

Reid shook his head. “Even if initially drugged and disemboweled death could’ve taken hours. Add to that the M.E. report says the heart removal was pre-mortem…the UNSUB wanted them to suffer and likely to know why. To the UNSUB these victims were people who broke the basic laws of man and deserved to be punished by the laws of God.” In the back of his mind he recalled Hankel's other selves insisting he had not honored his mother and must be put to death as he begged Tobias to let him free. His nails dug into his arm.

Morgan sensed it as he looked Reid over. “You wanna come with me and Hahn to speak with Lowe’s wife, and maybe daughter?”

“I was thinking JJ could join you in case Mrs Lowe is not as willing to speak about her husband as Hahn suspects,” Hotch countered. “I was hoping Reid would help Garcia at the station both with searches for other cases and into the police force itself. We still don’t know what happened to the murder weapon in the Gamboa case, if it was taken from the evidence room then we need to find out who took it.” He smiled a touch at Reid. “Also, if you have time, you could speak with the M.E. concerning all the cases thus far.”

“Sure.” For Reid anything was better than spending more time in this hotel.

“Rossi, you said you ran into an…unusual cleaning woman here?”

“That’s one way to put it.”

“I want you to try and find her again. Delusional or otherwise, she may know something given she believes herself from the time the original murders occurred.”

“If I don’t come across her, I’ll ask front desk to call her in,” Rossi assured.

“Good. Prentiss, I want you here as well. Outside the cleaning woman I want to search for anything that might bring about probable cause for a deeper search. With any luck guests and staff will be so busy preparing for Drake’s party that we’ll be able to catch them unawares, get them to speak more candidly than they might normally.”

“This is assuming anyone here has something to know,” Emily countered.

“They do. I’m sure of it.”

“How?”

“Lowe got calls about crimes being committed here and you yourself admitted that the bartender was cagey about what she may or may not know, right?”

Emily gave up a nod. 

“Right, so let’s do a thorough sweep of this place without interruption while we can.”

“And you?”

“I want someone with Lowe at all times.”

“You mean you want you with Lowe at all times,” Emily smirked knowingly, Hotch ignored her.

“Hotch, did you want us all to go to Mr Drake’s show? Perhaps I can speak with him beforehand, get an early look at his guest list…maybe even arrange a good vantage point to watch everything that’s happening?” JJ offered.

“Sure.” As much as he thought the team should be there he didn’t want to miss something, anything, while the team hung out at a fashion show. “But we should pair up and spread out, maybe even have one of us outside in case the UNSUB stops by, but doesn’t have the guts to go in.”

“We stand around outside we could spook him,” Morgan countered.

“You really think a guy this bold, this cocky, will be scared off by one agent hanging around outside what he might well consider his hotel?” Rossi scoffed.

“Really wanna risk letting him slip through our fingers?”

“We’ll see how Mr Drake sets things up.” Hotch moved to close the debate. “Either way it would be a good idea to have some of us up in the balcony as well as in the audience.” He turned to the still dampened tech advisor. “This time I’m afraid you’ll have to remain in the hotel, Garcia.”

“Are you kidding? For the first time ever you’ve actually managed to make this place sound appealing.” She smiled, but her joke lacked its usual pep.

Hotch gave up a smile before getting back to business. “Garcia, you can stay in the audience, just stay aware of your surroundings. JJ, if you can get backstage and close to Drake you can interview him and some of his people. Bring Reid.” He doubted Will Drake would be able to resist. “Rossi and Morgan you’ll likely be in the balcony, if possible.”

“Great, finally get myself to a sweet fashion show and I’m in the nose-bleeds,” Morgan aw-shucksed with a smile.

“You’re not missing much, trust me,” Rossi replied cooly. He’d been to a few over the years and found they were actually pretty boring even if you were into fashion.

Hotch ignored them. “Prentiss and I can keep eyes on Lowe.”

“What if he’s not there or leaves?” Emily questioned.

“Hopefully he’ll be at the show and he’ll stay there, but if not I’ll take him.”

“Alone?” Rossi’s brows rose. “He’s going to notice that and quicker than most.”

“You said he might’ve had a woman in his room last night?” Emily questioned, Hotch nodded. “Maybe I should follow? He notices me I can flirt, diffuse his suspicions.”

“You want to follow him?”

“If he leaves the party.”

“We won’t have an assured method of communicating, what if we lose you?”

“If he’s our guy it’s unlikely he’d be stupid enough to kill a federal agent in the hotel her team’s staying at knowing the team is close by.”

“And if he leaves the hotel?”

“Then I call local police and have them contact you via the front desk.”

Hotch wanted to argue, deny her, but he couldn’t find reason to yet. “We’ll see how the next twenty-four hours go.” It wasn’t that he didn’t think her capable, it was worry something would go wrong in a hotel like this and it was selfishness on his part. He wanted to follow Lowe, he wanted to be the one to reveal the man’s secrets.

*** 

Reid stopped short in the doorway. There, on his bed, was the whole kit. Belt, bottle, needles, and even gauze. Laid out in the order of usage; laid out like a banquet just for him. He began to scratch, sweat, pant. He licked his lips like a starving man before the feast. All those urges he didn’t have while at this hotel…he had them. As strong as in the height of his usage and height of his withdrawals, the cravings jumped him. Just a hit, just one, just enough to sleep in this godforsaken place.

He only made time to lock the door before he rushed the bed. His hands were just inches from the bottle, the needle, when Reid was slammed into the wall. 

“Fuck! Get off, get the fuck off!” He screamed as heavy weight kept him pinned even as he struggled to push off and slip out. “Get the fuck off!!” He tried to reach for his gun, but the other grabbed his wrist before he could. He grunted, tried to slip out, break the hold, as the room spun, he spun. He looked into ghastly, desperate, eyes. “…Gideon?”

***///***

_“He said, ‘We haven't had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine’…” ~ Hotel California, Eagles_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are about to get very AU for both shows...just a head's up.


	5. Room Service

  
_“What a nice surprise (what a nice surprise)…” ~ Hotel California, Eagles_

***///*** 

He sat on the bed ready to pounce should Reid make another move for drugs even with the kit thrown out, the liquid flushed. He’d helped Reid to get clean once, he’d keep him clean now. Because here it wasn’t just important not to use, it was crucial to survival.

For his part Reid had no intention of using as he curled himself into a chair…He was fairly certain he was already high on something. It wasn’t that his old friend and mentor was sitting there before him, it was that Jason Gideon was sitting there before him with a large gash in his throat. A gash that should render him speechless, lifeless.

“Reid, I need you to focus, to listen to me, can you do that?” Yet his speech was not affected and his voice was just as Reid remembered it.

“You…you’re not here. You can’t be here!” Reid insisted. Because if Gideon was, what did that mean? Then again, if Gideon wasn’t, what did that mean?

“I am. I’ve been here for…” he laugh-sighed. “I can’t even remember. A year, maybe two…maybe more, time plays tricks on you.” Another sad laugh. “But, I assure you, Spencer, I am here, with you, now.”

“Are…are you…real?” Reid immediately scolded himself. Like a delusion would tell you they were a delusion! 

“This place is dangerous, you have to leave. All of you.”

“Are you real?” And yet Reid kept asking his stupid question.

Gideon smiled. “Yes. Would you like me to prove it to you?”

He nodded, but wasn’t even sure how this Gideon could. Everything Reid knew about him the delusion would too.

“Ask David what our favorite coffee shop was when we started at the BAU together. He’ll say Grinder’s and make a joke about how we found it appropriate because of how we ‘grinded' away in the basement.”

Reid considered the question, then realized it was something he didn’t already know about either man. This was a story, a joke, he’d never heard. “What are you doing here, Gideon?”

“I’m stuck. Trapped.”

“How?”

“Spencer, you’ve seen my neck.”

“Are you…are you…dead?”

“For some time now,” Gideon confirmed. “I was here to see my son initially. He was playing at a concert hall nearby, I was so proud of him…and honored he invited me.”

“Then?”

He sighed. “There were a series of disappearances here, at the hotel.”

“The Ten Commandments Killer?”

“No.” Gideon shook his head, gave a bitter smile. “These were all random. They were transients and addicts and people who wouldn’t be missed.” He always had a soft spot for the lost causes - the unloved, uncared for. “I began looking into the hotel. I began researching it, searching it. The…the horrors of it were…were overwhelming. I started seeing things, seeing the dead. In the halls, in the showers. They’re everywhere. All over the hotel!”

“And now you are too.”

“I came to speak to you.”

“What happened to you?”

“The children.”

“The children?”

“In the pool. I found them, I…I wanted to get them out. I turned around and my throat was…blood everywhere.”

“Someone cut your throat.”

“Of course, look at it!” Gideon snapped suddenly, almost standing, before he settled back down. “This place…does things to you, even in death. Everything wrong, everything unsure, everything negative about you will be magnified the longer you’re here.”

“That’s why the urges.” At least Reid had an answer for that.

“That’s why the urges.” Gideon fell to his knees before his protege. “You have to leave, Reid. You and the others. Get out now, while you still have a chance.”

“But…the case.”

“Don’t give up on the case, just the hotel. Leave the hotel.”

“Gideon, I —“ The knock was loud, Reid jumped and turned to the door. He turned back and Gideon was gone. The knocks continued. “WHAT?!” His voice shook with the rest of him; he was too on-edge for this.

“It’s Morgan! Come on, man, let me in!” Morgan was about to knock again when Reid finally opened up the door. He wasn’t any more encouraged about his friend’s state of mind when he saw him. Sweaty, shaky, even paler than usual. “Christ, Reid, are you okay?”

“I’m fine!” It was meant as a stern confirmation, but came out as a panicked squeak of defiance.

“Alright…alright, you just…don’t look that great.”

“I think we should go to a different hotel. I think we _need_ to. If you and I speak with the others we might be able to convince Hotch to have us switch hotels. I know Garcia would be with us, for sure, and JJ would go along just to have her own room again.”

Morgan looked past him into the room, tried to press in a bit, but Reid didn’t move. “There anyone else in here?”

“No. Why?”

“Because it sounded like there was.”

“Well there isn’t.” Reid was not about to confess he’d been talking to their dead mentor.

*** 

While Emily didn’t want to admit it, even to herself, that “bad juju” Garica wouldn’t shut up about was something she felt. Even in just hovering by the walls she could hear the screams of the dead. She felt just as she had in her youth — dark and restless. The house’s decay had taken up residence in the beats of her heart.

Clothes on the floor, playlist going, she sunk into the lukewarm tub. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bloody with rust anymore. She let her head fall back a moment, closed her eyes, and felt ripples. She opened her eyes. The ceiling had spots, necrotic-black, and she watched them spread. Drip. Trickle down the walls. They hit the water, went from black to grey, then faded to nothing.

The room was rotting away.

She closed her eyes, let the sensation of skeletons crawl over her like so many insects. “There is…” 

A woman had died in this tub. Drowned. It was ruled a suicide. 

“A house…” 

The ruling was wrong. Someone, some _thing_ , else did it. 

“In New Orleans…”

Her eyes opened and the room was clean. 

“They call The Rising Sun.” She sang along, soft and low. 

“It’s been…” 

Her shoulders slipped under. 

“The ruin…” 

She felt a hand in her hair. 

“Of many a poor girl…” 

Fingers grasping, tangling in the damp strands. Her eyes shut. 

“And god, I know, I’m one.” 

The hand became an anvil and she sunk. Terror swelled, but not Emily’s. It was the drowned woman’s. Emily could hear her every thought, feel the panic of her last moments as water filled her lungs.

“…But shun that house in New Orleans…”

Emily felt the rough bedspread on her back. She gasped, rolled, and threw up rotten water onto the floor. Her eyes stung in attempts to get a full breath through the sloshing in her lungs. Another mouthful of putridness came and she curled into herself, ignoring the pain in her lungs. 

“They call The Rising Sun.”

*** 

Liz blew the smoke into the air before glancing at Iris, shutting her copy of Lord Arthur Savile's _Crime and Other Stories_ , and sighing. “What’s with the puss?”

“Just worried.”

“If you start in about your son again, I swear to God…” She was sympathetic, but to a point.

“No…well, maybe, but not really.” A hand went to Liz’s impatient hip. “It’s the feds.”

“Oh…them.”

“What if they figure this hotel out, you know?”

“That’d be a first,” Liz scoffed. “I’ve been here for years and still haven’t put together all the ins and outs.”

“They could figure out enough,” Iris warned. “Enough to cause some real problems.”

“Are you referring to your son or just in general.”

“Both. For all of us. Add to that this new owner…I don’t see the residents here staying calm and under the radar for very long, do you?”

“From what I’ve been told this is not the first time the hotel’s been under threat” - The Countess had told Liz about the upheaval after March’s death, the city’s suggestion they tear the place down - “and it’s still standing. You know why?”

“Bad luck and the souls of the innocent?” Iris earned a brief smirk from her cohort.

“The ability and willingness to fight to the death to survive, one way or another.”

“One way or another,” Iris repeated grimly as The Countess passed by without her Donovan.

*** 

She had planned to go alone on a hunt, but those plans changed when she stepped out into the night air and smelled him. There may have been decades of aging on his part, but that sweet smell of cockiness and just a pinch of anger remained unchanged. “David.”

Rossi turned, still sucking on his cigar. His lips spread into a wide, toothy, grin. It was like seeing your old college girlfriend, only she didn’t get old. He pulled the stogie from his mouth. “Elizabeth Johnson.” He’d heard Hotch mention a woman by that name, but it never entered his mind it was her.

“How long has it been?” She closed in on him, pulled a cigarette from God knows where, and set it to her lips. She loved the way his face lit up when he lit her cigarettes, his Italian features intensified.

“Decades. Not that it shows.” He smirked. “Not for you anyway.”

“You’re too kind.”

“You look like my daughter…my granddaughter even.” It was mind boggling. “How?”

She blew her smoke high and away as she set a gloved hand on his arm. “A lady never reveals her secrets.” She smiled. “Take me to dinner.”

“Direct as ever.”

“What’s the point of being coy when blunt gets you what you really want?”

“Fair enough.”

“Did you become that great big crime fighter you boasted about?”

“I did, yes.”

“So these agents in the hotel…they’re yours?”

“Only in that they’re colleagues.”

“Pity.” She might’ve been able to handle them a lot more easily if they were his employees.

He shrugged. “Keeps me from having to deal with all the added stress.”

“Mm.”

Rossi’s eyes looked her over once more as he used his free hand to take a puff. “You really haven’t changed at all, you know. You look exactly the same.”

She could sense he was going to push it, like a thoroughbred close to the lead. “Take me to dinner, David.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere.” The Countess planted a deep, red, kiss to her former lover’s cheek. “I’m in the mood for Italian.”

***///***

_“There she stood in the doorway…” ~ Hotel California, Eagles_  



	6. Room 33

_“We are programmed to receive…” ~ Hotel California, Eagles_

***///*** 

“Hey! You wanna keep those fingers?!” Garcia warned as Reid tried for the third time to touch her screen.

“Bu-But you’re not doing anything!” He griped back. He’d asked her five times to open the file and she’d just kept staring at Hotch on the phone.

“Shhh, I’m listening.”

Reid had hoped to throw himself into work, into finding more potential cases, to try and forget the night prior. To stop the mental battle he was having on whether or not he had imagined the whole thing. There were no signs of Gideon in the morning, no signs of any drugs or paraphernalia either. Yet he was certain it had happened. All of it. He wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t.

“I think we should leave.”

“Here?”

“No, the hotel. We should leave now before…”

Garcia shook her head. “We can’t go before finding Rossi.”

He hadn’t come down in the morning and hadn’t been in his room. When Hotch asked Iris at the front desk she seemed unaware and uncaring. Emily stayed behind, said she’d hunt the hotel for him, but Garcia was near tears with nerves. She knew that place was evil, she knew it’d take one of them. Even now her eyes threatened to burst with water as Hotch sighed and hung up.

“Ms Taylor says she doesn’t know anything either.”

“We…we should go back and search. Help Emily search.”

Hotch went and sat next to Garcia. “He’ll be okay. He’s tough, smart. He taught me everything I know about this job.”

“This isn’t a normal case,” she whispered, a wary look to Lowe as the man seemed transfixed by the crime scene photos on the board.

“We’ll all go and search at lunch if we don’t hear anything, okay?”

“I think we should leave, Hotch.” If Garcia wouldn’t listen, maybe Hotch would.

“Reid —“

“The minute we find Rossi, we need to leave that hotel. We can just…go to another one.”

“That hotel is probably still our best lead.”

“That doesn’t mean we need to stay there!” Reid bit his lip and dropped his voice when it seemed Lowe was listening. “I think Garcia’s right, there’s something wrong with that place. It’s like a crime scene in every room, no one can get any sleep, and now Rossi’s missing.”

Hotch took a deep breath, then nodded. “Fine. I’ll have JJ start working on finding another hotel tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow morning?!” Garcia gasped; this time Lowe turned, but only for a moment. “Why not straight away?”

“We have the fashion show tonight, it’s easier to just crash there, and, when we find Rossi, I’d like to find out exactly where he went. Maybe he found something worthwhile.” Assuming he was alive, but Hotch was not yet ready to share his doubts about their friend…he wasn’t even ready to truly acknowledge them.

*** 

The look on Morgan’s face told Hahn it would be best not to challenge the agent’s intent to drive. With the loss of one of their own they wanted to be in charge of the case if only for the day; he understood and had no trouble with that. Maybe they would be able to make the break his department needed to catch this guy. Thing was, the silence was killing him.

“Lowe went missing for a couple days after a case.”

Morgan only glanced at him, but JJ leaned in from the back. “Where was he?”

“No one’s sure, not even him.”

“He doesn’t know?”

“So he blacked out?” Morgan took a turn. “He do that a lot?”

“Just the one time that I’m aware of.”

“He got a history of drinking?”

“He did,” Hahn admitted. “But after the blackout he stopped…next day his son, Holden, disappeared. It’s sorta a terrible irony really. Guy finally decides to devote himself to his family and within 24 hours it’s destroyed.”

JJ and Morgan looked at each other via rearview mirror, but only JJ spoke. “So the loss hit them all hard?”

“Yeah. Alex the hardest, I think. She can’t even stand to have pictures of him around anymore.”

Morgan pulled into the drive after another ten minutes of silence. “You know Alex better than us so you can make the introductions, reiterate why we’re here, if you’d like.”

“Yeah, okay, sure.”

JJ exited on Hahn’s side. “We want you to be honest, but stress that we’re trying to help. Help John, help with the case, and so on.”

“Yeah, I get it.” They didn’t want to spook Alex into clamming up or lying.

Hahn knocked, then hit the bell, before a frazzled blonde with a sad face opened the door. “Andy, hi.”

“Hey, Alex, I came with the FBI guys to talk…Remember?”

Her brow furrowed, then it hit her. “Yes, of course, sorry, I just…I’ve had a patient take a bad turn.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Hahn stepped in, followed by Morgan and JJ.

“It’s…” Alex sighed. “It’s frustrating, but I’m not about to give up.”

He nodded, then turned to the others. “Alex, this is Agent Derek Morgan and, uh, JJ, who’s the liaison between their team and…well…everyone else really,” he chuckled a bit.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. Andy told me you were helping him and John on their latest case?” She shook their hands with a look for confirmation.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Morgan smiled. “We were called in to help catch whoever’s killing these people and texted John pretending to be you.”

Alex nodded as she led them into the living room, sat, and let the others pick their seats. “How? Andy said something about analyzing behavior. How does that work, exactly?”

“Not that different from what a regular detective might do, but on a grander scale. We look at every aspect of the case, even the small, seemingly meaningless, details to try and figure out what sort of person is committing the crimes. From there we can put together a description of the person, both in generals and with specifics in mind. After that the local detectives take the description and start their search with a better idea of who they’re looking for.”

“And speaking with me will help you do that?”

JJ gave a soothing smile. “You and your daughter, Mrs Lowe, yes. This person knew about you, used your connection to your husband to lead him to a crime scene, and your daughter was the first to see that crime scene.”

“…You think this person, this killer, is…after us?”

“No,” Hahn broke in protectively.

Morgan clarified. “Not necessarily. We do think he has or feels he has a connection to your husband though.”

“Like a stalker?”

“Again, not necessarily. Detective Hahn here says John’s very dedicated so it’s possible the UNSUB - unknown subject - felt he wouldn’t be ignored or dismissed by John over other officers.”

Alex looked each of them over, inhaled, and cut to the chase. “Am I and my daughter safe or not?”

This time JJ answered. “What your husband did, distancing himself from you and Scarlet, was a smart move. Because we aren’t yet sure the exact nature of feelings the UNSUB has concerning John we would have suggested the same thing. I would tell you and your daughter both to be aware of your surroundings, of any strange events you may experience, and report anything you may find suspicious. It’s always better to call for nothing than not call at all.” Her smile grew.

It didn’t answer her question, but Alex got the sense that, like John, they couldn’t tell her much anyway. “Well, if you’re here to ask about any weird incidents I’ve experienced that might relate to what’s going on with John I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

“But your daughter was with him when he went to the latest scene, right?” JJ smiled. It always got tricky when you wanted, needed, to talk to people’s children…only now, with Henry, did she truly understand all the reasons why. “Perhaps she noticed something that might be important.”

“You want to talk to Scarlet?” Her anxiety showed in her eyes.

“We promise not to pressure her, Mrs Lowe,” Morgan assured.

“Please, call me Alex.”

“Alex. If she wants to stop at any time, she can, and I will. In truth we’re more likely to ask about the before and after events than when she found the bodies…but we do need to speak with her and, if possible, we’d like to speak with her alone.” Morgan gave his most charming smile. “That way she can speak openly, without distraction or worrying about worrying you.” And in case there was something Scarlet wanted to say, but felt she couldn’t in front of her mother.

Alex looked to Andy and he gave an encouraging nod. “Well, I…” she turned back to Morgan. “I suppose it’s all right.”

*** 

Emily hadn’t realized how intricately massive the hotel was until she started her search. Some hallways led nowhere, they stopped short or somehow managed to circle back to their start. Certain doors had no knobs and some walls seemed hollow, leading somewhere she’d never get to without a battering-ram. The only thing that seemed consistent about the place was its inability to get cellular service.

Her breath gurgled from water still trapped in her lungs as she reached the third floor. Rossi was going to pray he was trapped somewhere she couldn’t get to when she found him. 

She heard something behind one of the doors and listened carefully, following the noise, until she was at the door to room 33. She couldn’t make out what it was, but there was definitely someone or something inside the room. Emily knocked hard. “Rossi? Rossi, are you in there?” More sounds, but nothing that indicated speech. She pounded the door and pulled her weapon with her free hand. “FBI, open the door!” So I can bust in and tear it apart…

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I was you,” a man called out in a chipper Boston Brahmin voice.

Her eyes slid to him. No weapons, no clear indication he was a threat, but his presence kept her on edge, clutching her sidearm. She kept it down, but ready as she slowly turned to him. “Why’s that?”

“Well his mother’s very particular about who does and does not visit. She’s downright protective, really.”

“There’s a child in there?”

“An infant.”

“Alone?”

“It has a governess.” 

“That doesn’t answer the door.”

A too-charming smile spread over his face. “Anyone that’s allowed to see the child already has a key. Anyone else…” he shrugged. “Is simply out of luck.”

Emily noted his pinstripe suit, the cane and bowler, the pencil mustache. “Do you have a key?”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t. But even if I did, I wouldn’t let you in.” He wanted her very much alive at the moment.

“Do you live here?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“…What’s your name?”

“What is it you’re looking for, Ms…”

“Prentiss. Agent Emily Prentiss. One of my teammates didn’t show up for work this morning.”

“And you think he’s here?”

“We’re all staying here, it was the last place he was seen.” Her fingers flexed on the gun. “You going to tell me your name or not?”

“Ah, yes, forgive me…” He thought he could slip by that part, but she was too persistent. Admirable, if not a touch inconvenient at the moment…not that he was about to outright refuse a chance to brag either though. “My name is James Patrick March. This is my hotel.” He beamed with pride.

“James Patrick March.”

“Yes.”

Emily smirked. “I suppose that explains the get-up.”

“Get up?”

“We’ve been looking for you, you know.”

“Yes, I’m aware.” He took a step forward to see what she would do.

The gun rose right between his eyes. “Not another step.”

“Or what?”

“I think you know.” 

“You keep this up, you’ll never find your friend. Not in one piece anyway.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Merely an offer to help.”

Emily couldn’t tell if he was psychotic or psychopathic…or one of those rare birds that was both. She knew he was dangerous though, of that she had no doubt. “You know where he is?”

“I have an idea.”

“Share it.”

“I’d much rather show you.”

“Life’s full of disappointments.”

“And you would know, wouldn’t you, Agent Prentiss? I know you, you’re just like me.”

“I find that incredibly unlikely. Now turn around, get on your knees, hands on your head.”

“You know I’ve so rarely been on this side of things,” he noted as he acquiesced. “But then one should never be afraid to try new things.”

Emily moved to cuff him, adding an extra click on each side as precaution…and warning…and punishment.

March turned his head to Emily’s, smirked out heated breath. “Tell me, why didn’t you simply blow my head off?”

“Because it wouldn’t get me what I want.”

“Which is?”

“To find my friend and solve this case.”

“And you think I might be part of these events?”

“I think you’re a huge part,” Emily yanked him up without resistance. She pushed his back against the wall. “1920s dress, Boston Brahmin accent, the manner of speech…everything about you says you’re someone obsessed with March, which is exactly what we’re looking for.”

“Or that I am March.”

She smirked. “You can’t be.”

“Why not?” He leaned in. “Is it so hard to believe I might be?”

Emily wanted to say yes, it was, but was it really? With everyone’s experiences thus far, with her own last night, how impossible would it be to…no, it was a ridiculous thought.

“Is it?”

Emily couldn’t tell if he was repeating his question or countering her thought. Her gun was by her side and nestled in his. When did he get so close? He smelled like copper and absinthe.

“I’ll tell you exactly where your friend is, if you shoot me,” he whispered.

“What?”

He blinked in slow time with her, lips going up. “You want to, you’ve wanted to since you first saw me. You know what I am, I know you know, just like I know you keep thinking about how I must have killed all those people. What I might have done to your friend, Agent Rossi.” He sneered. “Have you come up with any scenarios? I’d love to hear them.”

She cocked her gun, he pressed in. 

“What the hell’s going on?” Iris.

Emily turned back to March, but he was gone. Her eyes went wide as she almost jumped back. No one was there. She searched for any evidence he was ever there, but found none except her cuffs on the floor. That was it. Nothing else. What. The. Fuck.

“What are you doing here?” Iris was neither surprised nor suspicious. Maybe annoyed, it was hard to tell.

*** 

Scarlet sat on her bed, eyeing Morgan, unwilling to volunteer anything. She was a kid, she wasn’t stupid.

“Do you remember when your dad got the text?”

“We were eating at our favorite sushi place.”

Morgan smiled, nodded. “Did you see the text?”

“No.”

“You heard it?”

She shook her head. “No phones at dinner.” Morgan gave her a smile. “He had it on mute.”

“Did you see anyone come into or leave the restaurant around the same time as you and your dad?”

“No.”

“What about when you got the mansion? Did you see anyone then?”

“No…but there were noises.”

“Noises?”

“In the woods around the house.”

“Like a cough or voices or…”

“Rustling. Like someone going through the bushes or something. That’s when the other cop left.”

“Did you hear anything else?”

Scarlet thought. Did she hear anything else? If she did, how would that answer affect her dad? “Footsteps, but only after I was in the house.”

“Fast ones, like someone running, or slow ones, like someone walking or trying to sneak around?”

“Fast.”

Morgan smiled. “I know this is gonna sound weird, but do you think you can make them?”

“Make them?”

“On your leg, like this…” He slapped his hands against his legs at different paces. “Walking…running…” He looked to her with a hopeful look.

Scarlet’s gaze indicated how stupid she thought it was, but she did it. She did it for two people running. She lied.

*** 

Iris wasn’t sure this was the right move, but anything seemed better than letting Agent Prentiss into room 33. She hit the penthouse button.

“I thought you said you didn’t have any idea where he was?” Emily glared, somewhere between on edge and just plain pissed off.

“Well, I don’t know he’s there for sure, it’s just a guess.” Based on what she did see and past experience…she could only hope The Countess didn’t tear the man apart for dinner.

“Iris?”

“Mm?”

“Why were you headed to room 33?”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were coming down the hall.”

“You were talking to yourself, I wanted to be sure you hadn’t snapped.”

Emily snorted her disbelief. “People have a tendency to snap in this hotel?”

“You’d be surprised.”

“I doubt it.” The elevator dinged, the door opened. “Why were you on the third floor?”

“I work at this hotel.” Iris stated.

Prentiss pounded the door. “OPEN UP!!” Her patience was long gone. “OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR NOW!!

Iris stepped back as the door started to open, but stepped forward when Donovan stood before them. “What?’ He looked over. “Jesus Christ, you got the feds bugging me now?” Iris shook her head.

“I’m here for my friend.”

“The Countess?” It was obvious Donovan didn’t know what Emily was talking about.

“Special Agent David Rossi,” Emily countered with a flash of her badge. “I have reason to believe he’s in here.”

“My mom tell you that.”

It clicked. “You’re Iris’ son?”

“Yeah.”

“But you don’t work here.”

“No, I live here with The Countess.”

Emily looked over at Iris. That was why the woman was employed at the hotel…and possibly why she was so miserable. Family turmoil. Interesting… “Look you let me in and your mom and I will be out of your hair. You don’t and I’ll have to leave Iris here, watching the door, while I get the rest of my colleagues.”

“Yeah, alright.” He’d already lost interest and it seemed easier to just let the angry woman in.

“Come on,” Emily instructed Iris, but she refused to move outside a shake of the head.

“I’m not going in there. I have other, better, things to do with my time.” She wanted no part of whatever happened next; The Countess would be angry enough at her.

Emily just rolled her eyes and ordered Donovan to lead the way.

*** 

JJ kept Alex busy with questions about her work and how Scarlet was holding up after what she’d seen.

“Good, really good, actually,” Alex smiled gently. “She’s a very resilient girl…she’s been through a lot.”

“My understanding is that you all have.”

Alex knew where she was going and sighed. “Yes, we lost my son, Holden, five years ago.”

JJ only nodded, but when Alex didn’t add more she gave a slight push. “Were there ever any leads?”

“None that panned out.”

“You don’t have any pictures of him out.”

“No, I…couldn’t take the memory of him, of losing him, everyday anymore. May I ask why you’re so interested in my son’s disappearance? Do you think it has anything to do with these murders? With John’s…stalker or what-have-you?”

“We don’t know yet, but the better picture we get of your family the better picture we get of John and, from there, we may be able to understand why this killer seems to feel connected to him.”

“One thing leads to another.”

“Possibly,” JJ smiled. “We sometimes find clues in the smallest of details so we prefer to cover everything possible.”

Alex nodded, but stayed silent as she considered the agent’s words. “If they’re connected, do you think you could find him? Find out what happened to him? Holden, I mean.”

“It’s hard to say for sure, but we’ll certainly try.”

“I’ll…I’ll go get you a picture. For your files or something.” Yes, the police already had a few, but this was the FBI.

*** 

Donovan took Prentiss through the rooms, one by one, each time dramatically pointing out how there was no one there. No one, but him. When asked about The Countess he would merely shrug. “Haven’t seen her since last night. Not like we’re joined at the hip, you know.” Prentiss didn’t have any proof, but she found that somewhat hard to believe. Donovan gave off the vibe of an obsessive, an addict. She’d let it slide because she believed him — he didn’t know where The Countess was.

A suspicion confirmed when he threw open the last doors of the penthouse and saw her and Rossi lounging in bed. “What the fuck?!”

Prentiss’ sentiment exactly.

***///*** 

_“Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes Benz...” ~ Hotel California, Eagles_


End file.
